The editor of a Vermont newspaper is out of a job after criticizing a proposal to add a third gender option to state driver licenses, calling it “one step closer to the apocalypse.”

Denis Finley, editor of the Burlington Free Press, shared his thoughts Friday on Twitter in response to a story that the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles is acquiring a new computer system to allow it to add a third option for people who don’t identify as male or female.

“Awesome!” Finley tweeted. “That makes us one step close to the apocalypse.”

The post caught the eye of several users, including one who asked if Finley was the appropriate “kind of person” to have leading a newspaper and another who criticized Finley for disparaging the proposal so harshly.

Denis FinleyTwitter

“As a pastor in our Burlington community, I deplore the tenor of this theologically poisonous tweet,” another response read. “As a gender fluid person, I demand an apology, particularly for the children and adults on our beloved city who suffer under the oppressive hell of binary gender privilege.”

Another response blasted Finley’s “narrow mindedness,” while one user suggested it might be time to cancel their newspaper subscription.

But Finley pressed on, challenging another user who questioned why allowing people a third gender option on driver’s licenses would bring the end of world.

“So i should just accept that it’s awesome? Why?” Finley replied. “Not everybody believes it is awesome. Why is it awesome?”

Finley, who joined the newspaper in September 2016, was fired late Monday after a meeting with Gannett leaders, the newspaper announced. Randy Lovely, vice president of community news for the USA Today Network, said Finley’s tweets violated the company’s code of conduct and ethics policy.

“We encourage our journalists to engage in a meaningful dialogue on social media, but it’s important that the conversation adhere to our overarching values of fairness, balance and objectivity,” Lovely said.

The newspaper’s president, Jim Folger, said Finley’s tweets reflected his personal views and not those of the staff or leadership of the Burlington Free Press.

Finley, for his part, told the Seven Days newspaper that he started to worry about his future at the newspaper as criticism to his tweet kept coming throughout the weekend.

Finley, who previously served as editor of the Virginian-Pilot, declined to discuss how his now-former employer handled the controversy or the meeting when he was fired aside from to say he didn’t know what to expect beforehand.

The newspaper named Burlington Planning Editor Emilie Stigliani as the interim editor as a search for Finley’s replacement begins.

Finley, meanwhile, acknowledged that his original take might’ve been a “bit harsh” in a subsequent tweet.

“So be it,” he wrote. “I like to challenge and provoke. Happy to talk about it.”